Tête was a winery I have only had one wine from before so it was exciting to visit them and try more. Unfortunately here I would have needed more French. But we got on somehow: I spoke superbad French, Michel and his wife spoke much better English.

St. Amour Les Capitans 2012 – really nice wine, perfumed, relatively light, well structured but not harsh at all, very refreshing. Very attractive.

Juliénas Cuvée Prestige 2011 – a sweet, very ripe wine; plenty of tannins, much fruit, but also good acidity. Hold and it will probably become something very nice.

Juliénas Cuvée Prestige 2006 – this was a nice treat: mature, and magnificently perfumed; soft palate initially, yet then it becomes quite firm on the finish. Refreshing. Great stuff.

St. Amour L'Exception 2009 – a freak year; and a freakish wine. All other Têtes were wonderfully refreshing but this one was heavy and ponderous and the only one of their wines that I didn't want to drink huge amounts of.

From what I understood, they don't use only autochthonous yeasts, but instead use a starter yeast of neutral aromas. Other than that they seem to be “natural” if I understood their French.

Mathieu Lapierre

On our last day we had a quick tasting at Lapierre. Mathieu has made wines since 2004 with Marcel and continues to make wine in that style. Mathieu had opened numerous bottles the previous day, so we got to try an exceptionally large amount of bottles – both sulfured and non-sulfured.

2012 – here the sulfur wasn't noticeable and both cuvées were attractive; both were in a leaner style as expected of the year.

2011 – a much richer year and the non-sulfured cuvée was very fresh and vivid but the sulfured was only very nice and felt a bit tight.

2010 – here I didn't see much difference between the sulfured and non-sulfured cuvées: both were bright and refreshing and savoury.

2009 – I must confess that though I usually like Lapierre, this vintage seemed a bit too raisiny and hot year in style for me.

2008 – sulfur isn't always bad. In this vintage I thought the sulfured cuvée was much more fresh and lively than the non-sulfured one.